71 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AS Algoy lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AS Algoy can pretend not to have heard.
99 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AS Algoy lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
The goal that put Galactik ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when AS Algoy equalised, 2 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
The mood at AS Algoy has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
106 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AS Algoy lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Marked 9.47 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad11 Dec 2028
Words at AS Algoy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ezechiel Youssouf is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
8.00. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Stars Jeunes Talents held the lead for 1 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. AS Algoy answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
141 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AS Algoy lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
0‑4 to Aiglons, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at AS Algoy can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Issa Oumar is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
23 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The words a physio says slowly. 81 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AS Algoy can pretend not to have heard.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
109 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AS Algoy lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at AS Algoy, and it is not being withdrawn.
Issa Mahamat was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Ali Moustapha falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Issa Souleymane signs something — a contract at AS Algoy or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Idriss Tokindang was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.